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  • Does a client have to hold the maximum £50,000 to have any chance of winning?

    Jackpot winners have a varied amount invested – one winner of the £1 million jackpot only had £17 in Premium Bonds! However, the more Bonds you hold, the better your chances of winning.

  • Do only people in the South East of England win the £1million jackpot?

    No. Since we introduced the £1 million jackpot prize in 1994, we’ve seen winners in every country in the UK and every county in England, as well as five winners living outside of the UK. It may appear that the South East wins more than any other area, but that’s because there are more Bonds held there compared with the rest of the UK.

  • Are the winning Premium Bonds the ones bought most recently?

    Each £1 Bond number has an equal chance of winning, regardless of when or where it was bought. Over 97% of eligible Bonds have been bought since the year 2000. So even though Premium Bonds have been on sale for over 60 years, this is why newer Bonds seem to win more frequently. When ERNIE randomly generates winners, it doesn’t store any numbers, so there’s no way any Bonds can be left out.

    In 2015 the £1 million jackpot was won by a customer with only a £400 holding, who bought them in 2008!

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  • Does buying Premium Bonds in a sequence increase the chances of winning?

    It’s a popular myth that holding Premium Bonds in a sequence can improve your chances of winning, but this simply isn’t true. The machine we use to generate the numbers for each prize draw—ERNIE—generates numbers completely at random, which are then matched to our database of eligible Bonds to determine the winners. Since no Bonds are actually entered into ERNIE, it doesn’t ‘know’ anything about the Bonds themselves, such as whether the Bond number is part of a sequence of numbers or not. The only thing that can increase your chances of winning is holding more Premium Bonds – but holding them in sequence won’t make any difference.

  • Can Premium Bonds be held in a SIPP or SSAS?

    No. Premium Bonds were designed as a tax-free product and the maximum holding limit gives individuals the opportunity to have a potential tax-free return by way of the prize draw. The Premium Savings Bond Regulations do not allow for Premium Bonds to be invested in trust as the investment was created for individuals to invest in. Only solely named individuals can invest in Premium Bonds - the regulations do not allow joint investors or any organisation, whether incorporated or unincorporated, to invest in Premium Bonds as this would go against the intention of the investment.

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